US Practitioners Give their Advice on Setting up and Running Markets for Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Marketplace recently attended the Third Annual Environmental Markets Conference and asked market players what advice they would give to other practitioners working at a practical level on various types of Payments for Ecosystem Services.   Here are their responses:

NOTE: These interviews originally appeared on the Eko-Eco Blog.

6 July 2010 | Bobby Cochran, the Director of the Willamette Partnership, spoke about catalyzing demand and using existing models as a basis for new market development.
Bobby Cochran
 
 
Michael Van Patten, Mission Markets’ CEO & Founder, also emphasizes starting with locating buyers.
Michael Van Patten
 
 
Tom Simpson, the Executive Director of Water Stewardship, notes that “low quality credits would destroy a the market.”
Tom Simpson
 

Stephanie Gripne, the Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Development, emphasizes engaging the end user of ecosystem credits.
Stephanie Gripne
 

Finally, Todd BenDor, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, speaks about the geography of the market.   Apologies for the background noise in this clip.
Todd BenDor

Becca Madsen is Ecosystem Marketplace’s Biodiversity Program Manager.   She can be reached at [email protected]